Hasta La Gadget!

It’s a well-known fact that China’s Great Firewall isn’t particularly friendly with certain foreign online services, and sadly, it appears that we may now have a new victim joining the likes of Facebook, Twitter and, sometimes, Android Market. According to Windows Phone Sauce blogger Kane Gao, many Windows Phone 7 users in China have had limited access to the Marketplace over the last few days — they can’t download any app, but they can still browse content and receive update notifications.

While Microsoft’s service has yet to go live in China, Chinese users could still purchase apps by changing all of their profile location settings to the US. Alas, this trick is of no use now, though it’s unlikely that Microsoft’s the culprit here — it wouldn’t make sense to block genuine US users who are visiting China. Fortunately, Kane had no problem getting to the Marketplace via a US VPN, which is a big tell-tale sign showing that the Great Firewall has decided to barricade WP7’s very own app market. The reason? We’ll never know, and there’s no telling on whether this is a permanent ban, either. Nokia, being a big player in the country, sure hopes not.

[Thanks, JagsLive and Rahul]

China loses partial access to Windows Phone 7 Marketplace, Great Firewall to be blamed? originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 08 Aug 2011 09:30:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink WMPoweruser, Penn Olsen  |  Windows Phone Sauce  | Email this | Comments

What’s in a logo? These days, it’s everything — it’s one of the most recognizable symbols a company can have, and it appears Microsoft isn’t taking its emblems lightly. Over the course of the past week we’ve noticed an interesting trend: the Windows Phone branding has shed the circle-based icon in exchange for a square-shaped variant, appropriately reflecting the platform’s “tile” look and minimalist theme. We first thought this was a fluke when we peered at the new logo at Fujitsu’s IS12T event last week, as though it were a localized version made for Japan; as it turns out, however, this is indeed an official change across the board. If you need more proof than the source link below, yesterday’s press invite for Nokia’s Gamescom party features the new squared variant as well. We’re still holding out for a green robot-shaped logo, but this will have to do for now.

Windows Phone changes logo, officially hip to be square originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 02 Aug 2011 02:24:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink WP Central  |  Shinobu Takahasi’s MSDN blog [translated]  | Email this | Comments

Until now, mobile app developers have followed a pretty predictable MO: develop for iOS first, Android second, and everyone else after that. Since last year, many of you code monkeys out there have been tapping into Nitobi’s PhoneGap, a project that makes it easier to churn out apps for almost every OS, all at once. It’s been picking up steam, with about 40,000 downloads per month, 600,000 in total, and a steady stream of donations. That all culminated this weekend with the release of PhoneGap 1.0, which lets devs use HTML, CSS, and JavaScript to write and deploy apps for iOS, Android, BlackBerry, webOS, Bada, and Symbian. That’s a long list indeed, but we see one glaring omission: Windows Phone 7. Hit the source link to download it for free and check out the promo video below for an oh-so quick overview.

Update: Oops! Looks like WP7 is included! Our apologies, and feel free to celebrate accordingly.

Continue reading PhoneGap 1.0 lets devs write apps for seven platforms (video)

PhoneGap 1.0 lets devs write apps for seven platforms (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 01 Aug 2011 11:20:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink TheNextWeb  |  PhoneGap  | Email this | Comments

Here’s a little feature that Microsoft quietly sneaked into Mango — you can stream music straight from your SkyDrive account. With the latest WP7 update comes some nice integration with Redmond’s cloud storage service, but it’s not just for pulling up spreadsheets. You can navigate to any folder and, if you tap on an compatible sound file, it’ll start playing the tune in the music app. It’s not a full fledged streaming and syncing service like Google Music or a tightly integrated ecosystem such as iTunes and iCloud, but it is a pretty neat trick. And, lets be honest, no matter how cumbersome, sometimes those unofficial solutions are much more gratifying. Check out the video of it in action after the break.

Continue reading Mango quietly enables music streaming from SkyDrive, hides amongst your spreadsheets

Mango quietly enables music streaming from SkyDrive, hides amongst your spreadsheets originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 28 Jul 2011 13:11:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  Being Manan  | Email this | Comments

Windows Phone developers are getting one step closer to the fresh, fruity tang of Mango’s RTM build with a newly released SDK update. The one month-in-the-making “Beta 2 Refresh” tweaks the previously issued Windows Phone SDK 7.1 and is available now for download, packing an improved profiler, locked application platform APIs, an emulator-based screen cap feature for your apps and a “peek at the Marketplace Test Kit.” Microsoft’s also thrown devs an extra bonus and will be pushing an OS update, Build 7712, to manually upgraded Mango phones. Sounds sweet, but it’s too bad this hot number won’t be ready in time for your app-building, beta hands.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in.]

Microsoft releases Mango SDK Beta update for developers originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 27 Jul 2011 16:17:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  Windows Team Blog  | Email this | Comments